Print Festival rational

This is a brief that our course tutor briefed to us. The brief was about exploring print processes and researching via process with the final versions being printed on GFsmith stock and exhibited in Colours May Vary.

 

Everyone taking part in the brief was assigned a colour from Gfsmith's Colourplan range to print on.
My colour was bright red, above is an image that I had been working on seperate to the course but decided to use the design for this brief. This decision was because of my colour, after being assigned bright red my mind cast to this t shirt as it is bright red too.



The idea from this design came from a graffiti artist called Legz. In his own way, he himself is exploring print as he uses stencils and spraypaint which could be compared to ink and a screen. The way the images Legz creates give off impressions of intestines fits well with the colour red as it is usually associated with blood and can connote internal body colour.



The first step was to draw the design which wasn't easy. As its tangled nature can confuse quite easily. After the drawing process was complete drawing around the document in illustrator was done Experiments with stroke widths and stoke terminals were done at this point.


Once I was happy with the stroke width and the design itself it was separated into two positives ready for exposure.

Expanding

This brief so far forced me to experiment, There were alignment mistakes and mistakes with the actual exposure of the screen (above) this left me wanting to experiment with these mistakes and see what results mistakes would have on the overall print. I also wanted to try and make a gradient using ink as its something Ive never done.

I experimented on various stock weights and with various finishes. The foil stock took longer to dry but gave the ink a shiny effect.  

The gradient was extremely fun and with the help of the print room technicians was relatively easy to achieve. 

I was surprised with how accurate the ink I mixed matched to the original design. 

Evaluation

This brief allowed for experimentation and experience with traditional print process screen printing. Using a set type of stock and having to submit at a certain size also awarded professional experience as well as the chance to get work seen by the outside world. The exposure of the print and washing the soft emulsion was the hardest part of this project as it was an old screen being used the design was particularly hard to wash out. This would be something to watch out for future screen printing projects. Designing for print has brought to light some interesting observations about design. Although the screen version of the design can be very similar, like in this case but the final printed outcome always looks different this goes to show that designing on screen is ineffective especially when it comes to traditional processes.